Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates in general to wireless power transmission systems, and more specifically to methods for testing the communication between power transmitters and power receivers.
Background Information
The communication between a wireless power transmitter and a wireless power receiver of a wireless power transmission system may encounter unexpected or unpredictable errors due to conditions external to the system, due to defects within software design of the system, or due to degradation or unexpected operation of system hardware. The wireless power transmission system software may have communication error detection and correction methods so that normal operation of said system may continue in the event of any error.
This communication between the transmitter and the receiver is essential for wireless transmission of power from power transmitter to power receiver because transmitter uses communication connection with receiver to determine if the receiver is nearby or within power transmission range, to read the amount of power that the receiver is presently receiving and monitor this value while adjusting the direction of the transmitter's array of power transmission antennas to maximize power received by the receiver, and to command the receiver to electrically connect to its client device to transmit power to it, or disconnect when not powering it.
One limitation of wireless power transmission systems may be that defects in the system software may not be corrected and may cause interruption or unwanted cessation of normal operation of said system, if the system software is not tested for error conditions, if testing cannot be done manually, or if manual testing is inadvertently not done.
Another drawback may be that the failure of the system software to correctly respond to these error conditions may cause interruption or unwanted cessation of normal operation of the system if any error condition only occurs infrequently, and may only be detected by automatic test software.
The above mentioned problems, if not detected by automatic testing, may occur during system design development, during demonstrations, during production burn-in, or in the field of use after product installation during product normal operation.
Thus, there is a need for automatic test software that tests cases which cannot be tested manually or tests cases which occur so infrequently that it is not practical or there is not enough time to test manually.